Snow White
Snow White by the Brothers Grimm, Sabrina and Daphne's ancestors through Wilhelm Grimm, tells the story of a beautiful young princess whose step-mother is insanely jealous of her beauty. The step-mother has a magic mirror which can never lie, and when she asks it who the fairest in the land is, it replies Snow White. The Queen flies into a rage and demands that a huntsman kill her and bring back her lungs and liver. When the huntsman finds Snow White, he finds that he cannot kill and warns her about her step-mother's plot, then brings back the heart of an animal to the Queen to prove that he killed her. The Queen is pleased and goes to check in with her magic mirror. Meanwhile, Snow White has managed to find a tiny cabin with seven beds, of which she sleeps in the last one she tries. When the occupants of the cabin return home and find her there, she explains her story and they take pity and allow her to stay in exchange for doing housework. Snow White agrees and begins to live with the dwarves, where she believes she is safe. However, when the Queen asked the Mirror who was the fairest in the land, it did not just say that it was Snow White, but it also revealed where to find her. The Evil Queen then makes 3 attempts to end Snow White's life herself, but the dwarves are able to thwart the first two. However, they cannot stop the third, when Snow White bites into a poisoned apple. They believe her to be dead and put her in a glass coffin. Not very long after, a prince rides by and becomes enraptured with her and asks the dwarves if he can have her. The dwarves agree, and when he adjusts the coffin, the bit of apple that was stuck between her lips, as she wasn't poisoned or dead after all, shifts and she wakes up, confusedly asking where she is. The prince declares his love for her and she agrees to marry him. They invite everyone to their wedding party, including Snow White's evil stepmother. When the step-mother asks who the fairest in the land is, the mirror replies that the newly crowned queen is, which motivates the queen to attend the wedding. When she arrives, she is shocked to see Snow White, as she had still believed her to be dead. As punishment for her actions, she is forced to put on red-hot iron slippers and dance to death. Meaning The main takeaway of this story is the evils of jealousy. If the evil queen had just loved her step-daughter rather than be jealous of her beauty, this story likely would have had a happy ending for all involved. The Sisters Grimm However, the meaning of this story changes vastly in The Sisters Grimm. For one, the queen is Snow White's actual birth mother, making her crimes even more heinous. Secondly, she is a powerful enchantress, and does not die at the end of this story. And third, Snow White and the Prince (William Charming) do not get married as she leaves him at the alter, finally realizing just how foolish she had been throughout the story and feeling too ashamed and helpless to follow through with getting married, as she needed to learn herself first. However, the only real change in message is that Snow White does not marry the Prince right away, telling readers to be comfortable with themselves before they commit themselves to another person. But, in the final two books, everything changes. It turns out that Snow White's mother actually re-wrote the original story, as it had been to terrible to comprehend, with Snow White marrying William's cruel and sadistic older brother Atticus, who beat and abused her, while her mother, Bunny, could do nothing to stop it. So, using her magic she rewrote the story, completely erasing Atticus and putting her with his younger brother, who Bunny also considerably edited to make him anywhere good enough for her daughter. But no matter what she did, the story always ended in tragedy, because it needed a villain. In order to keep her daughter safe, she wrote herself in as the villain, as that way her daughter would be safe because she would never actually hurt her. She created the Magic Mirror (as well as many more similar mirrors) and invented herself as a vain villain in order to keep her daughter safe. The seven dwarves were the only ones who realized that she changed the story, and rather than be little helpers to Snow White as they are in the story, they demanded she return it to its original state, despite what happens to Snow White. All of the dwarves argued this except for the seventh one, Mr. Seven, who took Bunny's side. This created a rift between himself and the other dwarves, and they would not see each other again before he died, protecting William Charming from Atticus as Bunny had asked him to do. Eventually, in The Sisters Grimm, Atticus returns, but when he does, Snow White is able to defend herself and ends up killing him. This has changed the meaning of the story from being a warning of the dangers and evils of jealousy to a message about the unbelievable strength of maternal love, as well as a message for girls that they should be able to be self-dependent and not rely on others for everything, as Snow White originally did in the story. It also shows how important it is to stand up for what you believe is right, no matter the consequences, as Mr. Seven did. It may have cost him his life, but he believed it was worth it, as it gave him the love of his life (in his wife Morgan le Fay) and a best friend (in William Charming). Characters * Snow White * William Charming * Bunny Lancaster * Mr. Seven * Mr. One * Mr. Two * Mr. Three * Mr. Four * Mr. Five * Mr. Six * Mirror * Harry ''(In ''The Sisters Grimm) * Donovan (In The Sisters Grimm) * Reggie (In The Sisters Grimm) * Titan (In The Sisters Grimm) * Fanny (In The Sisters Grimm) * Arden (In The Sisters Grimm) * Atticus Charming (In The Sisters Grimm)